Subranian Swamy is an Indian politician, economist and statistician. Before joining politics, he was a professor of Mathematical Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. He was a member of the Planning Commission of India and was a Cabinet Minister in the Chandra Shekhar government. Between 1994 and 1996, Swamy was Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade under former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao. Swamy was a long-time member of the Janata Party, serving as its President until 2013 when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party. He was nominated to Rajya Sabha in April 2026 till April 2022.

Swamy’s career started with his involvement in the Sarvodaya movement, which was an apolitical movement that formed the foundation of the creation of Janata Party later.

The Liberal economic policies put forward by him did not go well with the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He was later expelled from the IIT. This marked the beginning of his political career. As a staunch opponent of Indira Gandhi, the opposition party, Bhartiya Jana Sangh sent him to Rajya Sabha. He was an elected Member of Lok Sabha, five times between 1974 and 1999.

In 1984, he was expelled from Janata Party. After that, he joined Lok Dal, the party of former Prime Minister Charan Singh. He fought the 1984 Lok Sabha election from Mumbai  North East Lok Sabha constituency on a Lok Dal ticket but lost.

In May 1988, Lok Dal was merged with the Janata Party with Swamy as its general secretary. Later, when Janata Dal was formed by merging major opposition parties Swamy refused to accept the merger. In December 1990, he was elected as president of the Janata Party by the Central Parliamentary Board. From 2016 to 2022, he was elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha.

During 1990 and 1991, Swamy served as a member of the Planning Commission of India and as Cabinet Minister of Commerce and Law. Between 1994 and 1996, Swamy was the chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade.

During the 1998 general election, Swamy allied with J. Jayalalitha’s AIADMK and won from the Madurai constituency.

He continued to be the President of the Janata Party till 2013. In April 2013, he officially joined the BJP when its president was Rajnath Singh.

On 8 April 2015, Swamy formed the Virat Hindustan Sangam, a right-wing cultural organisation to ush issues like building Ram Mandir, scrapping Article 370 and bringing Uniform Civil Code.